Young Writers Society

on the branch of a stripped pine, the ravens fight again,
echoes of your words tumbling from their beaks: what will it take
to go first? the cause for their familiar argument, a fallen nest
where the bonds of twigs lie shattered, rests a few feet below.
i do not get to stay. my gaze will not restitch this foiled home
and i have no choice but to go be everywhere and do nothing.

it's an ever-shifting equation, doing the math on how much
of myself i can give up and still call myself intact. in a dream
the world has burned and i have not left the house yet. in a dream
i run back to mend the nest and offer it to you but you don't want it,
and i realize too late its growing weight in my hands is threatening
to pull me through the earth. in a dream my mother looks at me
with sad eyes before she hands me the key to my childhood home
and walks away. those nights i go down with the ship, up in flames,
a captain with arms too weary to do anything but lock the door.

(you said you loved me because i was a poet. i wish that were enough
for me to love myself. i wish i could stop dreaming in melting points
and bury the too-keen scientist in me under feathery roots.)

her grin has too much light still. when we lock eyes
in the mirror, i can still see the chisel used to carve her
out of the marble, cruelly sharp and pointed at me
as if to hint that i will be the next one to be freed
from a prison of alabaster, or maybe a block of granite,
and displayed to the world as the false masterpiece
that should’ve stayed behind workshop doors.

we should all love the thing that destroys us, if we
don’t already. any word spoken after midnight
and the salt in her tears is a lie, but i know no other
definition for the taste of danger. i could have bitten
my tongue instead, thought it loud enough at her.
if i had, maybe we’d be able to talk over the screams.

it is not enough to look at her. it is not enough
to raise the hammer and return us both to the dust.

the meadow spins around with a familiar violence
that reduces you to dizziness. how many times
have you been chased here, fueled by nothing
but the stabbing terror in your lungs and a chill
down your spine? the crows overhead rearrange
into a new sigil and the director is shouting your way,
waving the script you dropped among the wildflowers.

when i find you, we sprawl together in the clover
and i tell you my bones are yours. you have my face
but not my name. you have me in death but not in life.

i am you-- i am her. i have the dirt under my nails
to prove it. the same runner's cramp stings our sides.

the grass stains on your knees gave it all away.
it's been another long night of burying yourself
and then clawing yourself back to the surface.

Hey silv! I loved your poetry- the layout and evenness of the lines is so aesthetic and calming to look at.

when i find you, we sprawl together in the clover
and i tell you my bones are yours. you have my face
but not my name. you have me in death but not in life.

this made me think of a Romeo and Juliet love tragedy and this was my favorite poem because of how well it covers... loss and a desire for something just out of reach </3 lovely poems!! <33